CURT CARPENTER

ASPEN PRINTMAKER

"Your woodblock prints capture the essence

of Aspen."

 

ANNA SPEESSEN

Red Brick Center for the Arts

Aspen

Here are 34 small, 6 x 6" woodcuts—a series of on-going illustrations for an unpublished Aspen Chapbook*—all based on field drawings made while hiking or skiing around the Roaring Fork Valley.

 

I'm fascinated by the challenge of simplifying a drawing into a woodcut: just four values—white, blue, blue/gray, and black—cut into square blocks of birch-veneer plywood.

 

The process (and the craftsmanship) of printmaking—cutting the blocks in reverse so they print right-reading, registering the blocks to fit, inking, transparency, running the blocks through the press, signing and numbering the prints—are deeply satisfying.

 

*Chapbooks first appeared in 16th century as small printed books, illustrated with crude woodcuts, and printed on a single sheet, folded into from 8 to 32-page signatures, then sewn and bound. The way that these books were printed, the reader would have to cut open each page with a paper knife before it could be read.

 

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